PeopleSoft Corp rounded out its supply chain offerings yesterday with the announcement that it has integrated Distinction Software Inc’s inventory management software into its supply chain management suite. As well as topping up its product offerings, the integration will also serve to boost PeopleSoft’s offerings for the high volume/low cost consumer packaged goods space, a market in which the ERP vendor has traditionally offered very little.
PeopleSoft bought Distinction back in December 1998. At the time, the company said it would integrate its own demand planning module (part of its supply chain management suite) with Distinction’s demand forecasting software by the third quarter 1999 and port the resulting application to Microsoft’s SQL Server 7.0 and Oracle 8i.
Yesterday, the Pleasanton, California software vendor said it had completed that integration and announced a new, combined product called PeopleSoft Demand Planning. Combining the two modules now enables users to access the analysis functionality within Distinction’s flagship Scope (supply chain operations planning environment) software. Specifically, it lets users drill down into forecasts and slice data for example, by region or by time (quarter, month, week). PeopleSoft’s demand planning also had this functionality, by way of a front-end Arbor Essbase user interface. That part isn’t integrated any more, but users wanting to perform deeper analysis can export the forecast into Arbor’s OLAP engine if they chose too, PeopleSoft said.
The company also announced a new inventory planning module, a rebranding of Distinction’s existing product, which enables manufacturers to plan inventory levels based on stated service levels or variables such as cost. The software lets users simulate a plan for a particular product line; for example, how much inventory a company will need to keep to achieve 98% service levels. The module is aimed at the consumer packaged goods space where the less inventory a manufacturer keeps, the higher the ROI, PeopleSoft said. Both the demand and inventory planning modules are available immediately and pricing will depend on customers’ revenues, PeopleSoft said. A spokesperson for the company also said it plans to integrate Distinction’s three other modules into its supply chain product suite. Constrained distribution planning (planning the flow of materials between sites), finite capacity planning (for products in CPG manufacturing) and purchase planning (procuring raw materials and components) will all be added as part of PeopleSoft 8.0, due to be launched in mid-2000, the company said.
